And the Red Badge of Courage goes to...
Cardinal Sarah:
Criticisms of Benedict XVI are ‘diabolical’
Emeritus Pope's preface to his book 'cover
cover the Church with a mantle of sadness and shame'
by Nick Hallett
Wednesday, 7 Jun 2017
Cardinal Robert Sarah has hit out at critics of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, accusing them of “vulgarity and baseness” in their criticisms of the former pope’s preface to the cardinal’s latest book.
“The arrogance, the violence of language, the disrespect and the inhuman contempt for Benedict XVI are diabolical and cover the Church with a mantle of sadness and shame,” Cardinal Sarah said.
“These people demolish the Church and its profound nature.”
In a preface to Cardinal Sarah’s book
The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise, Benedict XVI wrote that Pope Francis deserves praise for appointing Cardinal Sarah to oversee the Church’s liturgy.
However, critics have accused the former pope of
meddling in Church politics and trying to undermine Pope Francis. [PARANOIA to the nth power!]
“A Christian does not fight anyone,” Cardinal Sarah said. “A Christian has no enemy to defeat. Christ asks Peter to put his sword into his scabbard
[Mt 26: 52-53]. This is the command of Christ to Peter, and it concerns every Christian worthy of the name.”
In a wide-ranging speech last Monday opening the third annual Sacra Liturgia conference in Milan, the cardinal also lamented the practice of receiving Communion standing and in the hand.
He cited how Pope John Paul II, even when he was “wracked with sickness”, always knelt in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.
“He forced his broken body to kneel,” the cardinal said. “He needed the help of others to bend his knees, and again to stand. What more profound testimony could he give to the reverence due to the Blessed Sacrament than this, right up until his very last days.”
The Cardinal also quoted St Teresa of Calcutta, saying: “Wherever I go in the whole world, the thing that makes me the saddest is watching people receive Communion in the hand.”
At his address to the Sacra Liturgia conference in London last year, Cardinal Sarah made headlines by proposing priests face east (ad orientem), urging as many as possible to do so starting at Advent.
This year, he reiterated his support for facing east, saying: “I have spoken many times about the importance of recovering this orientation, of facing east in the celebration of the liturgy today, and I maintain what I have said on those occasions.”
The full text of Cardinal Sarah's address is not yet available, but La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana highlights another significant part of it (my translation):
Mother Teresa and JPII are models:
Communion on the mouth
and kneeling before the Eucharist
...Today I wish expressly to propose that we reflect and promote the beauty, appropriateness and the pastoral value of a practice developed firing the long life and tradition of the Church - namely, the act of receiving Holy Communion on the tongue, in a kneeling position.
If St. Paul teaches us that "in the name of Jesus every knee bends in the heavens, on earth and underneath (Phil 2:10), then how much more should we bend our knees when we receive the Lord in the sublime and intimate act of Holy Communion.
To reflect on this most sensitive topic, the cardinal proposed to those present the example of two saints: John Paul II and Teresa of Calcutta.
The entire life of Karol Wojtyla was marked by a profound respect for the Holy Eucharist... Today I ask you simply to think back on the final years of his ministry - as a man physically afflicted by disease - but John Paul II never sat in the presence of the Eucharist. He always knelt. He needed the help of others to do this and then to rise afterwards. But to the end of his days, he gave us a great testimony of reverence for the Mot Blessed Sacrament.
Mother Teresa certainly touched daily the 'body' of Christ in the ravaged bodies of the poorest and neediest. Nonetheless, with wonder and respectful veneration, she chose not to touch the trans-substantiated Body of Christ. Rather, she adored it. She contemplated it silently. She knelt and even prostrated herself before Jesus in the Eucharist. And she received the Host like a little child humbly nourished by her God.
To see Christians receive the Eucharist in their hands would fill her with sadness and pain. She herself said: "When I am in 'the world', the thing that makes me most sad is to see people receive Communion in their hands"...
The cardinal said he was aware that "current legislation contains an indult to receive the Eucharist on the hand and standing, but to receive Jesus on the tongue and kneeling is the norm for all Catholics of the Latin rite".
In his keynote address to the Sacra Liturgia conference last year, Cardinal Sarah created a firestorm that continues over his exhortation to all priests to start saying the Mass ad orientem. He has ignited an even bigger conflagration now - because surely, the Bergoglidolators will protest that he is now directly attacking the pope, who does not kneel before the Eucharist nor at Consecration.